Man sentenced to 18 years in prison for killing wife

David Pietz was arrested 6 years after Nicole Pietz's body was found

SEATTLE -- Seven years after Nicole Pietz was slain, her husband faced his punishment for killing the Lynnwood woman.David Pietz was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison. A jury last month convicted Pietz, 36, of second-degree murder.Prosecutors said David Pietz nearly got away with murder. King County sheriff's cold case detectives built a case using cell phone records and tiny amounts of DNA found in the slain woman's car.David Pietz was arrested March 2012 -- six years after Nicole Pietz's body was found in a wooded area in Burien.Her husband had reported her missing about a week earlier at the encouragement of the woman's friends. Nicole Pietz, 32, had failed to show up for a meeting and dinner with friends.Prosecutors alleged that the couple's marriage was in turmoil and that he'd been cheating on her. Nicole Pietz was strangled and beaten. Prosecutors alleged that her husband dumped her body and her car and then lied about his involvement for years.The defendant did not make a statement Thursday at the sentencing hearing in King County Superior Court. His attorney said the Lynnwood man was wrongly accused and that prosecutors failed to establish a motive.Nicole Pietz's relatives and friends spoke about their loss. Her family had sought justice for years. "Please, I beg you to keep her story out there. Keep it out there until an arrest and conviction are made. Nici deserves that," her mother Gael Schneider said in 2007 at a remembrance ceremony for her daughter.

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